


How Many More Times

by OneShotWonder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Comforting Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester Hates Witches, Gen, Hell Trauma, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Hell Dean Winchester, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season/Series 04, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:27:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 4,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29713014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneShotWonder/pseuds/OneShotWonder
Summary: In the middle of a case, a witch uses a spell to pry around in Dean's mind, which causes Dean to lose the control he had about his memories of hell.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

“Fucking witches.” Dean spat and rolled his eyes, then tried his restraints again. They were tight, but with enough time he felt like he could wriggle free. The problem was they didn’t have much time. 

Sam and him were tied to some very expensive looking kitchen chairs in the middle of a sprawling suburban home. The owner of the house, a soccer mom, also happened to be a powerful witch they had been chasing for the last week. 

“One more time, tell me where the book is?” She was calm, almost gentle in her asking as she prepared a spell in front of them. Her glass coffee table was set up like an altar, looking out of place with the white and lilac patterned decorations of the room. 

“Eat shit, you disgusting rotten bitch.” Dean smirked when he said it, eyeing Sam to see if he had any more success with the ropes. The plan was usually the same, Dean would distract her, while Sam would try to escape. But whatever spell she was concocting was almost done, and Dean was pretty sure he wasn’t going to like whatever it was.


	2. Chapter 2

They came to town a week ago in the wake of two suspicious deaths. A man drowned in his pool, which was nothing special, except that the crime scene technician on the case had drowned in his tub two days later. 

Dean had no idea how Sam pieced the case together, it was a miracle he even caught it, but Sam was good at his job. And though Dean had argued in the beginning that it was thin, they settled on checking it out anyway. 

Sam seemed to want to work constantly, despite being overly distracted. Dean had caught him coming back late from god knows where a few times in the last month, but every time he asked he got the same clipped responses. He was praying it was some woman Sam didn’t want him to know about. He should have been more concerned but that's all he really wanted to do was drink and work, anything to get his mind off how he had just spent the last forty years. 

So they took the case, as thin as it was. 

The first day Sam talked to the wife of the man who drowned, trying to get more details about his home life and the ‘accident.’ He posed as a grief counselor sent in by the city. 

They wanted to go in as the Feds again, but the city was big enough to warrant some caution, so while Sam distracted the wife, Dean managed to sneak around pool area to check out the crime scene. 

When they both came back empty handed they decided to comb through the police files. So the next few days were spent hacking into the police database and meticulously going through every piece of evidence they could find. 

“Jackpot!” Dean turned his laptop to Sam to show him an evidence list from the first crime scene. 

It was written in a barely legible scrawl, and scanned so it was hard to read. But Dean pointed to a line that clearly stated ' _small canvas bag containing what appears to be pine ashes and avian bones._ '

“If you look at the numbers,” Dean turned and clicked a few more keys, “looks like it was found in the pool filter.”

“You thinking hex bag?”

“It's gotta be. You know witches are into all that bones and gory shit.”

“The crime scene techs must have dismissed it. But how does that connect with the second drowning?”

“Dunno yet, but we need a look at the second crime scene.”


	3. Chapter 3

They ducked in that night after dark. Slipping past the crime scene tape with a lockpick and a little bit of luck that the neighbors weren’t home. 

The place was modest and clean, the tech lived alone and seemed to bring his work home with him. They found a few boxes labeled ‘evidence,’ and Sam sifted through them until he found the one about the drowned man in the pool. 

“Here it is.” He called to Dean in a whisper, and started to unpack its contents, quickly finding the hex bag, sealed in a plastic bag.

“This must be it, the spell must have been used to drown the other guy, but when the tech brought it back here it was still working.”

“He tied it back up. Could that have, like, reactivated the spell somehow?” 

“No idea, but its not a coincidence both these guys drowned, it must be the bag.”

Dean grabbed it from Sam, tearing open the plastic and holding the small hex bag over his zippo until it started to burn with a purplish fire. 

“Let’s stay away from large pools of water for the next few days just in case!” Dean winked at Sam, but he just rolled his eyes. 

“So that does it for the hex, now we have to figure out the witch who made it.”

The next few days proved that the wife was the most suspect. She got all the insurance money, the husband was having an affair. It was all so suburban and cliché it was almost boring. 

“Why couldn’t she just take him out with a hitman like all the other rich wives do on TV?” Sam wondered aloud as they were researching bank records. 

“Because she is a witch, and they are disgusting evil sonsofbitches.”


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning they sat outside the house, watching and waiting for the woman to either do something witchy, or leave so they could search the house. After a thermos full of coffee and a bag full of Funyuns, she finally walked out to her minivan with a yoga mat under her arm. 

“My god, could this get any more middle class?” Dean whined, but appreciated the view of her in her workout clothes as she packed the yoga mat into the car. 

Sam was just happy to get out of the Funyun-smelling car, and they walked around the back to pick the lock so they could search the place. It didn’t take them very long. Tucked away in the bottom drawer in her bedroom was enough witchy stuff to make a goth girl’s wet dreams. Hex bags, vials of some kind of putrid looking liquid, animal bones, dried herbs, and in the middle an old looking book. 

Sam flipped open the thick parchment pages and tried to read some of the spells. It looked like it was written in the futhark, but he needed to study it a bit more to find out where it came from. 

Dean’s phone rang as he walked in the room and he waved the book at Dean to indicate what he had found. Dean gave him a thumbs up and ended the call quickly. 

“We got another one, seems like they just pulled a body out of the lake.” 

“Let me guess, the woman he was having an affair with?” 

“Not sure yet, lets go check it out.” 

“You go, I am going to do a bit of research about this book at the motel. Meet me back there when you are finished.”

Dean felt a stab of anger. He knew it was normal for them to split up on the job and this time it was even called for, but he couldn’t help wondering what else Sam would be doing. He was so tired of the secrets and the lies. But this wasn’t the time or place to deal with it. So he dropped Sam at the motel and went to check out the crime scene. 

It wasn’t much, since he wasn’t posing as a cop he had to go for the nosy neighbor play instead. He stood outside the police tape, and used his charms on some of the older women to get them talking. Just like he thought, this was the woman who was having an affair with the first drowned man. 

Dean was tired. He drank a few mouthfuls of whisky from his flask before heading back to the motel. There was so much to do and he was running on so little sleep. The memories were creeping up on him a bit easier today than he would have liked. He pushed the thoughts away and started to think of all the ways he could kill a witch. 


	5. Chapter 5

Sam and Dean stepped into the house with their guns drawn. It was dark out, around midnight, and the moon shone almost full in the sky. There were a lot of lights on the street, but they managed to slip inside without anyone seeing them. 

“I was waiting for you boys.” The lights came on in an instant and she said a quick Latin phrase. Suddenly, the gun in Dean’s hand was red hot and he couldn’t hold onto it. It dropped with a loud clunk onto the hardwood, then Sam’s a second later. 

She was a good looking woman, tall and thin, with arched eyebrows and a small face that made her look much younger than she was. She had her altar set up on the coffee table and it looked like she was in the middle of a spell. 

Dean didn’t hesitate, lunging at her, but with another Latin phrase his eyelids got heavy, and he found himself falling headfirst into a white plush carpet in front of the sofa. 


	6. Chapter 6

When he awoke he was tied to a chair, neck stiff from the odd angle his head was drooping while he slept. And Sam was next to him, in the same predicament.

“Good, you are awake. Now tell me where you hid my book and I won't have to hurt you.” She said it with a smile, looking like a housewife in a commercial for laundry detergent. 

_How could this lady be a witch?_ Dean thought. But he knew better. He knew so many _things_ weren't what they seemed. 

“Eat me.” Dean said with a smirk, darting a glance at Sam when she turned back to her altar. He was already scraping the ropes on a sharp edge of his chair. 

They watched her prepare more of the spell, mixing some foul smelling ingredients in a small pewter bowl.


	7. Chapter 7

“Fine, I will just have to go in your head and explore a bit, you don’t have to say a word, but I will find. my. book.” Her voice was calm and confident, emphasizing the last few words to get her point across clearly. 

Dean was quiet then, holding back all his snarky comments because right now, after he got back from hell, he was barely holding it together. The last thing he needed was someone digging around in his memories. He abandoned his role slightly as the proverbial ‘punching bag’ because he hoped against all hope she would choose to look in Sam’s memories for the location of the book instead. 

He even considered just telling her where it was for a second, but then realized that when she got the spell book, they were useless to her. She would surely turn them into mice or spontaneously combust them or whatever other gross things witches knew how to do. He was stuck. 

“What no sarcastic comment? No funny joke?” She ran her manicured nail along Dean’s cheek and he snarled at her, doing his best to stay calm and think up a new plan. He wished he knew if Sam was close to getting free, the spell had taken some time and Dean had been doing his best to distract her. He had to be close now. 

“Leave him alone, he doesn’t even know where it is, I hid it.” Sam must have realized that she shouldn't be poking around in Dean’s head either. He sent up a little prayer of thanks to Sam for offering himself up instead. 

She shot a look at Sam, then smiled. 

“Sweetie, I don’t believe you, and plus, this is the one I want anyway.” She slashed Dean’s cheek with her fingernail and rubbed her finger in the blood. It stung but Dean didn’t dare show her that she hurt him. 

She lazily walked back to the spell preparations, stirring her bloodied finger into the bowl and finished chanting the few words. 

“You really don’t want to do this.” Dean managed to speak up, but there was fear in it, and she easily picked up on it. 

“Aww, is it dark and scary in that head of yours?” She made a mocking sad face. “Everyone thinks his mind is the darkest, but you know, I've been in a lot of minds, and we are all the same.” 

Dean knew instantly when it happened. He couldn’t help but cry out as an intense pressure pushed on his mind, it felt like fingers digging through the bones of his skull. 

He instantly started yelling a rock song in his head, hoping to distract her from poking around further. 

“SHE WAS A FAST MACHINE, SHE KEPT HER MOTOR CLEAN, SHE WAS THE BEST DAMN WOMAN THAT I, EVER SEEN…”

He tried to remember every chord, every drum beat to fill up the spaces in his mind. But the pressure was increasing. 

“Come on, let me in!” Her eyes were closed, screwed up and concentrating when she said it, and Sam was able to scrape the ropes against the edge of the chair harder, breaking a few more flimsy strands. 

“AND YOU, SHOOK ME ALL NIGHT LONG!” Dean continued to scream in his head, holding her back with everything he had. 

But then he had a thought, why was he pushing her away so hard? She wanted the book, but she didn’t realize the book was the furthest thing from his mind. What was on his mind was... what he thought about all day, every day, every minute since he returned…

“Fine, you want in, come on in!” He said with a snarl and let go. 

  
  



	8. Chapter 8

When Dean first clawed his way out of his own dark grave on that sunny day he didn’t remember much about his time in the pit. The memories came back slowly, over the next few weeks. It gave him time to adjust, to build up a kind of wall in his mind he could put the past behind. It didn’t work all the time, things still slipped through. He still had to drink his way to sleep most nights. But it was enough for him to function, to do his job. 

So when this witch tried to push into his mind and prod through his memories, he had enough. He simply took the wall down. It was easy, holding it up, holding it back was the hard part. He let the fire and brimstone crumble and everything came rushing through all at once. 

He screamed. Or at least he thought he was screaming. It was all so much so fast, he couldn’t process it. But his nerves were fried. It felt like he was on fire. All that pain. He remembered all at once. He could feel Alistair slice him open, he could feel himself being torn apart, his eyes scooped out, his bones breaking. He could feel claws on his skin, teeth. He was burning, drowning, being electrocuted. He could feel the pleasure of opening the arteries of the souls he tortured, he could see the light going out in their eyes, feel his hands around their necks. All of this like a hot wave flowing over his body and drowning him in the memories. 

He could see it, and he could smell it, it felt like he was back there. He could feel the metal hooks digging into his flesh holding him up, that weightless pain he could never get used to. 

It took everything he had to gain control. It felt like years before he could place where he was again, even who he was again. But it must have only been a few minutes, because it seemed like Sam had given up on the ropes and somehow smashed the wooden chair beneath him. He was still plucking himself out the wreckage, shaking off the ropes when Dean caught his eyes, full of worry and fear. 

Those eyes, Sammy’s eyes, they stabilized Dean more than he thought possible, they brought him back when he felt he was about to tip over the edge. He held on as the memories threatened to overwhelm him again while Sam started to untie the ropes that held him to the chair. He was panting, crying freely, and his skin was slick with sweat. And he could still hear the screaming. 

No wait, it wasn’t the layers of screams like in hell, it was just one woman screaming. The witch lay on the floor in a heap next to her altar. She was holding her head like it was about to explode and she bucked and spasmed like she was being electrocuted. The sound was ear piercing, and each new scream brought up fresh flashbacks for Dean. 

“Can you...please, make her stop?” Dean choked out, yelling like he was talking from underwater. He could feel the warmth of his brother’s skin on his arm, but everything seemed so far away. 

“Can you stand? Let’s just get out of here and call an ambulance for her.”

Sam tucked his head under Dean’s arm and hoisted him up by his side. Dean did his best not to flinch when he touched him. Sam was strong, real. Dean had to keep reminding himself, _I got out, I got out, I got out_ , playing like a mantra in his head. 


	9. Chapter 9

It took them far too long to get into the Impala and Sam could hear sirens in the distance as they pulled away. Someone must have already called the police. Of course they had, with all that screaming. _I hope she will be ok,_ Sam thought vaguely. Although she was an evil witch murderer, and they had come to the house to kill her, she didn’t deserve whatever had left her a broken mess on the floor. No one did. 

Dean leaned on the window on the passengers side, clutching his stomach and groaning. His limbs would sometimes spasm, like he was flinging something unseen off his skin. 

“Dean, what happened?” Sam made his voice low and steady. 

It took a while for Dean to answer, shuddering with convulsions every few minutes like he had a fever, his face twisted in pain. 

“She was in my head Sammy, so I just let her see it.”

“See what?” But Sam already knew the answer. 

“Hell.” It was barely a whisper but Sam heard it. 

He didn’t know what to say. There was a slight jealousy that pricked at him. He wanted so bad to understand what happened to his brother in the pit and this stranger got to see a piece of it, or more than a piece it seemed. But he pushed the thought away. If he could see what happened to his brother, he surely wouldn't want to. His imagination had been enough these past few weeks and sometimes it made him sick. It was obviously beyond words if just looking did _that_ too that poor woman. Dean never said he was tortured. But it was hell, so of course he was. 

Dean squirmed again in the seat, panting and covered in sweat. Then yelled “pull over!”

Sam did as he was told and before the car even stopped Dean had the door open, and started emptying the contents of his stomach onto the curb. 


	10. Chapter 10

When they got to the motel Sam wanted to get moving right away. No matter what the police thought happened to that woman, they would want to find and question the Winchesters. And they were too recognizable with the car to stay in one place. He wanted to be long gone before anyone came sniffing around. 

He somehow got Dean calm enough to sit down while he started to pack their things. Dean wasn’t doing well at all. 

Every time Sam tried to touch him, he flinched like he was going to be hit. And his eyes kept darting around the room in a way that made Sam think he was seeing something that wasn’t there. Sam could tell he was trying to sit still, but his hands were shaking and he bounced his knee like he was getting ready to sprint away at the slightest threat. 

Sam didn’t even need to ask if he was ok. He wasn’t. 

He just tried to pack up as quickly as possible. The faster they left town, the faster they could settle somewhere safe for the night, and Sam could try to figure out how to help his brother. 

He would be ok. Dean was always ok. He was Sam’s rock, his protector, his parent, since Sam was four years old. He had seen Dean beat down, bloody, and broken so many times in his life. But he always got up, he was always ok. Sam didn’t want to think about how different it was this time. He could barely look at his brother without thinking about how he looked like some civilian on a case who saw a ghost for the first time. Like someone scared out of their mind. Like a victim. 

_ He has to be ok.  _

Sam wiped a stray tear from his cheek and he saw Dean bolt to the small bathroom, barely making it to the toilet to throw up again. 

_ God what happened to him down there? _


	11. Chapter 11

Dean tried to help Sam pack the car to leave but he could barely stand. Everything hurt. He didn’t even know where it hurt, it just did. He managed to find a bottle of whisky from the first aid kit and downed it in giant gulps like it was water. He wanted to drown his mind, the memories, the thoughts. 

He knew he was having some kind of breakdown, but he was trying so hard to hold it together. How had this happened? He was controlling it for weeks, he had been fine. 

They started down the highway in a screech. Sam seemed to be in a hurry but Dean’s thoughts were too muddled to follow why. He looked over to Sam for some reassurance, wanting to see those eyes again. He felt so stable when he could look into his brother’s eyes. 

But he was distracted when he looked over at Sam and saw his stomach slashed open, his guts spilling out and pooling over his feet as he worked the brakes. 

It wasn’t real. Sam was fine. He was talking to Dean like he was fine. Saying something about where they were going, some kind of plan. But Dean couldn’t hear him over the roar in his head. Sam’s blood, everywhere, all over the front seat of the car. 

Dean was familiar with hallucinations, he had them before, when the hellhounds came. But this was different. It was less like a hallucination and more like a leak. Hell was leaking into his world, and he couldn't stop it. 

He pinched the bridge of his nose, then drew a hand over his face. He needed to focus, he needed to latch onto something real. 

His fingers felt the cool leather seats of the Impala, and he ran them along the stitching like he used to do when he was a kid. This was his place, in the passenger seat on all those long roads while Dad took them around the country. He breathed in the scent of the car, his only true home and he was finally able to breathe enough to hear what Sam was saying. 

“...and then we can figure this whole thing out. OK?”

He managed a quick nod, more to reassure Sam than anything else. But he kept his eyes closed, he didn’t think he could hold it together if he saw more of Sam’s guts spilling out of his body. 

He opened the bottle again and downed another few mouthfuls of the burning liquid. His only way out of this now was blackout unconsciousness, so he needed to drink fast. He was grasping for comfort and it was the only solution he could think of. He just wanted to stop being for a few minutes to let this pass. 


End file.
